Are you surprised?
Apple has stated that Facebook has broken an agreement by publishing a research app on their platform. The app in question, the Facebook Research App, collected all sorts of data from users; app history, private messages, location data. Their research allegedly targeted users as young as 13. Such an app is against Apple’s privacy guidelines as of last summer.
Facebook did this by publishing the app through Apple’s Developer Enterprise Program, which lets Apple approved partners distribute and test apps meant for their own employees. And that’s where the trouble starts.
Apple doesn’t review these apps the same as those on the App Store, as they’re only meant for the employees of one of their partners. Facebook, however, used the program to pay non-employees up to $20 a month to download and use the app without Apple’s consent. Apple’s PR made this statement:
We designed our Enterprise Developer Program solely for the internal distribution of apps within an organization. Facebook has been using their membership to distribute a data-collecting app to consumers, which is a clear breach of their agreement with Apple. Any developer using their enterprise certificates to distribute apps to consumers will have their certificates revoked, which is what we did in this case to protect our users and their data.
This essentially means that Apple has removed Facebook’s ability to publish anything to the App Store for the time being.
Facebook, on the other hand, states that they were already ending the research program in question. Most notably, they said that the program had been running since 2016. Implying that it might not have been entirely without Apple’s knowledge. Their statement on the matter:
Key facts about this market research program are being ignored. Despite early reports, there was nothing ‘secret’ about this; it was literally called the Facebook Research App. It wasn’t ‘spying’ as all of the people who signed up to participate went through a clear on-boarding process asking for their permission and were paid to participate. Finally, less than 5 percent of the people who chose to participate in this market research program were teens. All of them with signed parental consent forms.
As for what they want all that data for? Well, do the math. That data is an incredible boon for a business; knowing what their users are doing and saying, especially in regards to your service. Sure, it’s like screen cheating in an old multiplayer game. But that doesn’t seem to bother them much. That said, they’ve already gotten themselves into hot water with the FTC for this sort of thing. You have to wonder how much more they can actually do and get away with under that watchful eye.
Source: Recode
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